on the road again............

.........just can't wait to get on the road again............

2 more sleeps 'till i'm on a plane, yet again. our summer vacation is this coming week. i am going to the philippines with friends i worked with in sokcho. you can click on the following link to see where we're staying: http://www.takatuka-lodge.com/english/mainside/framesetengl.htm it looks like it's going to be a lot of fun to me.

not much is new here in suji. the rainy season should be finished by the time i get back and it's supposed to get hotter! the one good thing about my shoe-box apartment is that it has a/c!

more pics cont'd.......

i wrote about my interesting birthday---buddhist-style (you can look it up at the beginning of april 2006 archives if you want the details) and here are some pictures from that ceremony.

in these first pictures the monks are blessing me.........

this is just a random side street in maesot. i think there is a craft shop down there supporting burmese women, where i bought a traditional burmese skirt.

these are some burmese children. the boy's parents were friends of mine and the girl was the child of yet another hopeful person, wanting help from the united nations high commission for refugees, which is where the photo was taken. she just happened to be there. beautiful child. she happens to be wearing the traditional burmese face paint, worn for it's sun protection and decoration.

some more pics from maesot

it's been a long time (almost an embarrassing long time!) but i recently came upon some more pictures of my volunteer trip to share.

the buddhist water festival just happened to be during the time i was staying in maesot. this festival has turned into a nation-wide water fight. for 4 days you can't leave the confines of your house without getting wet......and i mean soaked. people are all over the towns and cities, at the ends of driveways, even in the backs of pickups, with water buckets, guns (you name it!).......anything that'll soak the next passerby. in the heat of thailand, it is a welcome relief for the first bit but by the end of the 4th day, you're about ready to kill the next person to throw water at you! (i wrote more details in a post from maesot in april 2006) anyway we made some traditional (and very yummy!) burmese treats that the burmese people eat during this time and here are the pictures:

in this picture the burmese women were rolling a dough made from rice flour into little balls.

this is the sweet, fudge-like center that you press into the rice dough ball and seal it.

the next step is to drop the tasty little morsels into boiling water and as soon as they rise to the top, they are done. we took them out and let them cool for a bit and the last step is to roll them in this coconut we scraped.

this is a picture of some burmese friends and i making some of the yummy traditional snack.